English stories 25 city at worlds end (v1 0) christopher bulis

CITY AT WORLD’S END
CHRISTOPHER BULIS


Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
First published 1999
Copyright © Christopher Bulis 1999
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 55579 3
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1999
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham
Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton


CONTENTS
Prologue
1 - The City
2 - The Mayor of Arkhaven
3 - The Wall Zone
4 – Underground
5 – Hospital
6 - Break-Out
7 - End of the Tunnel
8 – Sport

9 - Visitors?
10 - The Survivors
11 - Puppet Show
12 - The Deception
13 – Nightmare
14 - Class Barriers
15 - The Thing in the Dark
16 - Questions Without Answers
17 - So Close


18 - The Ship
19 - Lost and Found
20 – Investigation
21 - ‘...You Are Nothing.’
22 – Inquisition
23 - Skin Deep
24 - The Plateau
25 - Flesh and Blood
26 - Tidal Stress
27 – Rift
28 – Exodus
29 - The Will to Live
30 - The Taking of the Ship
31 - Last Chance
32 – Reunion
33 – Justification
34 – Masquerade
35 - At World’s End
Epilogue

Prologue
The force of the impact totally destroyed the asteroid and
came close to splitting the tiny moon in two. In a fraction of a
second, kinetic energy of motion was converted to heat, light
and a scattering of X-rays. The combined flash was visible
across half the stellar system.
A crater five kilometres deep and almost eighty wide was
blasted out of the moon’s surface. Fifty thousand cubic
kilometres of rock were converted into an incandescent plume
of vapour and semi-molten fragments and ejected into space at
a velocity too great for the slight gravity of the moon to ever
draw it back. In time it would form a ring about the moon’s
parent world.
During the days following the collision the outward effects
of the cataclysm gradually subsided. The scar of the glowing
crater that stretched across half a hemisphere cooled below red
heat. New mountain ranges thrust up by the impact settled into
equilibrium. The shock waves reverberating through its
interior faded away, leaving only the steady whisper of
thermal contractions within the surface rocks.
So the moon continued tumbling on through space – but
no longer along the same course it had followed for the
previous hundred thousand years. The impact had reduced its
velocity, and in obedience to the laws of motion and
gravitational attraction its orbital path changed.
The long fall had begun.

Chapter One
The City
‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea at all where we’ve landed,
Doctor?’ Barbara asked the old man in the black frock coat.
There was an edge of weary impatience in her voice.
The Doctor remained bent over the console, throwing
switches and tapping dials, the cool white light of the control
room gleaming off his flowing silver-white hair. ‘The readings
are not as clear as I might wish...’ he said absently, ‘but it
seems we are a few thousand years beyond your time, Miss
Wright.’
‘Well, whenever it is, it doesn’t look very prepossessing,’
Ian Chesterton observed.
The TARDIS’s monitor camera had completed a full
rotation and once again displayed the first image they had seen
after landing: slowly billowing fog almost obscuring a long
curving chest-high wall topped by a wire mesh screen. The
ground between the TARDIS and the base of the wall was
covered in blackish mud dotted with puddles. The view had
been much the same to either side. Behind them was the blank
expanse of a taller dirt-streaked concrete wall that stretched as
far as the eye could see.
‘It does look pretty dismal, doesn’t it?’ Susan agreed, her
bright intent face at odds with her words. ‘But according to the
instruments the composition of the air and the temperature are
both fine.’
‘So now I suppose you want to go outside and take a look
around?’ Barbara said.
The Doctor straightened up, hooked his thumbs under his
lapels and thrust out his chin. ‘And why should I not, pray?’

‘Firstly, because there doesn’t seem to be anything of
interest there and secondly, because it’s not where we want to
be.’


‘May I remind you,’ the Doctor said testily, ‘that I am not
operating a taxi cab service. I promised to return you to your
proper location in space and time as soon as it was practicable,
but I refuse to leave this place without making at least a
cursory examination. Who knows what strange and wonderful
things we might find Out there... just beyond that wall,
perhaps?’
‘And who knows what might find us,’ Ian pointed out.
‘You and Miss Wright are at liberty to remain inside the
TARDIS if you wish, Chesterton,’ the Doctor said
dismissively, ‘but I am going outside.’
‘And me, Grandfather,’ Susan said quickly.
The Doctor smiled benignly at her, good humour returning
mercurially to his features. ‘Thank you, my dear. Let us leave
our unadventurous friends to their own devices. But perhaps
we’d better wear our coats. It does appear to be rather damp
out there.’
‘I’ll fetch them,’ said Susan, stepping lightly over to the
bentwood stand in the corner.
Ian caught Barbara’s eye and she gave a little helpless
shrug. They had been Susan’s teachers back on Earth in 1963,
but now, as her strange origins became more apparent, she was
growing away from them. To outward appearances and in
some mannerisms she was still a teenage girl, but Ian sensed a
personality of great strength and boldness developing within

her.
They said nothing as the Doctor donned his long cloak and
muffler, while Susan put on a stylish raincoat and cap she had
brought with her from England. The Doctor threw a switch on
the console, the TARDIS’s heavy outer doors swung smoothly
inwards, and he and Susan stepped outside.
‘There really isn’t any point in arguing with the Doctor, is
there?’ Barbara said ruefully. ‘I sometimes wonder whether
even after all this time he resents the way we came aboard,
and is determined to take us back home by the longest route he
can find as a punishment.’
Ian smiled. ‘You know him. He never minds where he
ends up.’ He checked the monitor screen which showed Susan
and the Doctor examining the muddy ground. ‘Still, there


doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous outside this time.’
Barbara saw the expression on his face. ‘You’re getting as
bad as he is. You don’t have to keep me company if you want
to go outside.’
‘I wasn’t staying just to keep you company,’ Ian protested.
‘But as we’re not going anywhere until the Doctor’s ready
anyway, we might as well take a look.’
Barbara sighed. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get some
fresh air and stretch our legs...’
As they stepped out of the narrow outer door of the TARDIS,
which externally retained its disconcerting resemblance to a
twentieth-century British police call box, Ian tasted the air. It
was cool and fresh enough except for a faint tang of stale soot.
Their feet sank into a thick layer of crusted black mud.

Barbara grimaced. ‘I should have worn wellingtons.’
The largely featureless wall behind the TARDIS proved to
belong to one side of a round structure, broken only by narrow
louvered windows and a solid metal utility door. Mounted on
its roof was a heavy latticework girder mast that rose high
above their heads. Extending from its sides were several oddly
shaped mesh panels and dishes which Ian took to be aerials.
The other wall appeared to surround the building entirely and
was separated from it by the strip of level, muddy ground.
Ian and Barbara picked their way across the mud avoiding
the puddles. The Doctor, still crouching beside Susan, looked
up at them in satisfaction.
‘Ah, so you’ve decided to join us after all, have you?
Good.’ He indicated the ground. ‘What do you make of this,
eh?’
‘It’s mud,’ said Barbara.
‘No,’ the Doctor beamed. ‘If you examine it closely you
will find it is layered ash and soot. Clearly there have been
several fires close by in the recent past.’
‘I suppose nobody comes here very often,’ Barbara said,
looking about her. ‘I can’t see any other footprints.’
Ian made a cautious circuit of the open ground around the
building, which was about twenty yards in diameter. ‘There
are no other doors,’ he reported when he returned, ‘or any


opening in the outer wall. Just more fog beyond it.’
‘Maybe there’s a tunnel,’ Susan suggested.
Together the four of them walked with squelching steps
across to the outer wall and peered through the mesh screen

into featureless swirling opalescence.
‘Well, I don’t call that particularly wonderful,’ Barbara
said, pointedly glancing at the Doctor.
But even as she spoke the wind was strengthening. An
orange disc of a sun appeared in the grey sky, growing
brighter by the second. The fog shredded and thinned about
them. Suddenly a dramatic vista crystallised out of the haze.
‘Don’t you, Miss Wright?’ the Doctor retorted
triumphantly.
‘Of all the places to land us,’ Ian said with a chuckle, ‘you
had to pick the top of a skyscraper!’
They were looking out over a great city of similar
buildings. As the fog rolled away they saw hundreds of towers
thrusting graceful spires up towards the clouds. These were
linked by an intricate web of enclosed tubes and aerial
roadways that spanned the artificial canyons formed by the
buildings’ stepped walls of glass and stone. Streamlined
vehicles, looking like scurrying beetles from high above, were
speeding smoothly along the open ways.
‘Can you see any people?’ Ian asked after a minute.
The Doctor had taken a pair of folding opera glasses from
the recesses of his coat and was peering about intently.
‘Not at the moment,’ he said, ‘but then the inclement
weather has no doubt been keeping them inside.’
Barbara pointed to their right. ‘The city seems to stop
short in that direction. Do you see between those buildings... is
that a wall?’
The Doctor turned his gaze in the direction she indicated.
‘It is indeed a wall of considerable height,’ he reported. ‘I
can see a flat-topped tower built into it... there is some smaller

structure mounted on its roof which I cannot identify.’ He
swung his glasses from side to side. ‘The wall continues as far
as I can see. Perhaps, like medieval cities, this one is entirely
enclosed.’
‘What’s that beyond it?’ Ian asked, narrowing his eyes in


the silvery-grey light.
‘A range of mountains,’ the Doctor reported, ‘running
along at the back of the city...’ He swung about. ‘...Which
appears to be built on a promontory jutting out into a sea – or
at least a sizeable lake. I can make out a wide shoreline
running away to the horizon. Hmm. There is some object of
considerable size lying part of the way along the shore. It does
not seem to be natural... this is most annoying, I cannot quite
make it out. Susan, dear... will you run back to the TARDIS
and fetch the telescope?’
Susan was back in a minute carrying a long naval-style
brassbound telescope of antique design.
‘I left some very muddy footprints on the floor, I’m
afraid,’ she said apologetically.
The Doctor rested the telescope on top of the parapet wall
and focused on the object on the shore.
‘Most extraordinary,’ he murmured.
‘Don’t keep us in suspense, Doctor,’ Ian said. ‘What is it?’
‘See for yourself, Chesterton,’ said the Doctor,
relinquishing his position.
Ian focused the device and gave an exclamation. ‘A
flattened cylinder...a huge vessel of some kind, I think.
Perhaps a submarine? It’s split half open down one side. No,

surely it’s too big to be a submarine. A crashed airship,
perhaps?’
‘Don’t let your imagination be limited by the capabilities
of your own time,’ the Doctor warned as Ian gave up his place
so that Susan and Barbara could look. ‘Who knows what
devices the people of this world may be capable of building?’
‘With those exposed ribs it looks rather like a beached
whale,’ Barbara said.
‘An inappropriate if picturesque simile,’ the Doctor
replied. ‘However, the object has certainly been badly
damaged.’ He tapped his chin. ‘What fate befell it, I wonder?
Unless it is a very recent tragedy, why has it not been
salvaged?’
They made their way slowly around the parapet examining
the sprawling cityscape. The boundary wall seemed to be
continuous.


‘What’s it meant to keep out?’ Barbara wondered.
The towers coming into view became steadily taller.
Evidently the one they had landed on was situated near the
city’s outskirts. Now they were facing towards the centre,
which had previously been hidden by the roof building.
Suddenly the Doctor halted: ‘My goodness! How
remarkable.’
Standing in the very heart of the city was a structure that
dwarfed all the others around it. It rose in a series of graceful
tiers and flowing curves and even through the hazy air it
gleamed metallically. Beside it was a huge latticework tower
of girders connected to the silvery form by numerous extended

bridges and boom arms.
‘It looks a bit like one of those rockets they launch from
Cape Canaveral,’ Ian said breathlessly. ‘But this must be over
a hundred storeys high.’
The Doctor, peering through the telescope, said: ‘The
upper sections of what I take to be support fins are just visible
over the tops of the intervening buildings. It does indeed
appear to be a rocket and launching gantry.’ He then added
with unexpected solemnity: ‘Truly a ship worthy of the city
giving it birth.’
‘What was that about picturesque similes?’ Barbara chided
him gently.
‘I was employing metaphor, Miss Wright, not simile,’ the
Doctor retorted. ‘And there are times when it is fully justified.’
‘But why build such a huge rocket right in the heart of the
city?’ Susan wondered. ‘Launching it would cause terrible
damage – unless it had a counter-gravity drive.’
‘But the streamlining suggests a high launch velocity,’ the
Doctor pointed out. ‘It may be propelled by simple nuclear
transfer reactions.’
‘But would they risk the pollution that would cause?’
‘They may have mastered the use of the stable transuranic
elements,’ the Doctor speculated. ‘Or perhaps a pulsed fusion
system with a magnetically contained thrust.’
Ian was beginning to feel left out of the conversation and
saw a glazed look in Barbara’s eyes. Back at Coal Hill School
on Earth he’d taught Susan science, yet the terms and concepts


she was using so casually were far beyond his understanding.

He coughed. ‘Excuse us, but does it matter how it’s powered?’
‘You’re quite right, Chesterton,’ the Doctor agreed
unexpectedly. ‘The question of propulsion can be put aside for
the time being. First we must determine its intended purpose.
Something momentous I’m certain.’
His eyes were sparkling and Ian could almost feel the
enthusiasm crackling from him. The Doctor began walking
briskly back towards the roof building with Susan at his side
carrying the telescope.
‘Just a minute,’ said Barbara, ‘where are you going?’
‘There must be a way down through this building to the
first of those roadways,’ he said. ‘We may be able to utilise
the transport system to reach the ship.’
‘But we know nothing about the people who live here,’ Ian
pointed out. ‘They might be hostile.’
‘There is no indication that this city is dangerous,’ the
Doctor replied. ‘Its inhabitants could not live in such an
advanced society or cooperate in the construction of such a
ship without having developed a civilised code of behaviour.’
‘The Daleks lived in a great city, yet I’d hardly call them
civilised,’ Ian retorted.
The Doctor hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘You can
stay up here, but I am going. Susan, you may remain as well if
you wish.’
‘No, Grandfather, I want to find out more about the ship
too.’
The Doctor smiled at her warmly.
How can he love her so much, yet allow her to take such
risks, Ian wondered.
As they reached the TARDIS, Barbara said: ‘Doctor, what

about the people who live or work in this building? You think
you can just walk past them? What if they’re not even
remotely human?’
‘If I meet any local inhabitants I will be able to ask
directly about the ship’s purpose.’
‘Would knowing that satisfy you... so that you wouldn’t
need to inspect it for yourself?’ Ian asked.
The Doctor fidgeted. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded grudgingly.


‘Right,’ Ian said. ‘Let’s hope we meet a friendly and wellinformed local.’ He looked at Barbara. ‘It might be the
quickest way to sort this out, then we can get going again.’
She shrugged resignedly. ‘All right. Let’s give it a try.’
They returned the telescope to the TARDIS and the Doctor
locked the door.
Ian hoped the door set in the side of the roof building
would also be locked but, though its handle was stiff, it
grudgingly creaked inwards. Ian put his shoulder to it and
suddenly it swung open all the way. He stumbled forward a
couple of steps, then jerked back in alarm.
‘Watch out!’ he shouted.
Inside there was only a small catwalk suspended over a
void fifty storeys deep. The building was a hollow shell.
‘That gave me a bit of a start,’ Ian admitted, wiping the
back of his hand across his forehead. ‘I expected a proper floor
at least.’
The interior was criss-crossed with long beams and
bracing struts. Where once there had been floors, there were
now only ragged ledges running along the inside of the walls.
Here and there long ladders had been slung between the

supporting framework and the building’s shell. Everything,
including the rows of tall windows running down into the
depths, was smoke-blackened.
‘That explains where the ashy mud on the roof came
from,’ Barbara said. ‘Obviously the building was gutted in a
fire but they managed to save the outer walls.’
‘Anyway,’ Ian said with some satisfaction, ‘we can’t get
down so that’s that. Sorry, Doctor.’
But the Doctor was smiling impishly. ‘Really, Chesterton?
Do you see that pair of vertical beams in front of us? Note that
they seem to run the full height of the building. I believe they
serve as a lift shaft.’
‘Not what I’d call a shaft.’
‘Then what is this control unit for?’
For the first time Ian noticed a small box bolted to one of
the stanchions that supported the catwalk handrail. The box
had three large buttons on its front. Before anyone could stop
him, the Doctor pressed the upper button.


Somewhere far down below them a motor hummed into
life. A metal-frame lift cage rose out of the shadows, climbing
rapidly up the vertical beams.
‘It seemed logical to suppose that the people who worked
on this building would have left themselves some means of
ready access,’ the Doctor said, beaming with overbearing selfsatisfaction.
The lift halted opposite the catwalk. The Doctor opened
the safety gate and beckoned them to step inside. There was
another three-button control box within the cage. The Doctor
pressed the lower button and they began to descend.

‘Don’t fret, Chesterton,’ he said. ‘Consider that otherwise
we would have been reduced to climbing down the ladders.’
And Ian believed the Doctor might have tried it at that. He
was aware that he could never underestimate the old man’s
stubbornness.
As they sank down between the maze of bracing struts,
Susan said: ‘I think those long translucent plastic rods must be
temporary lights.’
Ian had already noticed them strung along almost every
beam; trailing power cables that gathered into bundles which
snaked away towards the lower levels of the tower.
‘They’re just work lights, I expect,’ said Barbara. ‘Maybe
they’re going to start rebuilding soon.’
‘But why are there so many of them?’ Susan wondered.
‘And do you see, they’re all set near the windows so that they
would shine outwards. Wouldn’t you want them facing
inwards for working?’
The Doctor looked thoughtful but said nothing.
They stopped the lift cage beside another gantry landing.
In front of them was a doorway set in the side of a rectangular
boxlike structure which ran through the middle of the tower.
‘This must enclose one of the roadways we saw from the
roof,’ the Doctor said. ‘We should be able to gain access to the
transport network from here.’
‘All right,’ said Ian. ‘We’ll take a look outside. But at the
first sign of trouble we go back up to the TARDIS, agreed?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Doctor impatiently. ‘I’m not a fool you
know. Chesterton.’

They opened the utility door carefully. There was a narrow
raised pavement beyond, flanking a stretch of black-topped
roadway. They slipped through into the tunnel and closed the
door behind them.
‘There’s a car coming,’ Susan said almost at once.
Ian tensed as the vehicle approached almost silently, with
only the faintest hum of an engine, on large balloon tyres. It
was painted a bright metallic scarlet and was the size of an
average saloon car, but streamlined into an aerodynamic
teardrop. Through a lightly tinted side window Ian glimpsed
the head and shoulders of a perfectly ordinary man sitting
behind the wheel. The car passed them without even slowing
down.
‘You see, Chesterton. Nothing to worry about,’ said the
Doctor.
They walked along the pavement into the grey overcast
daylight and out across the dizzy heights of an aerial road
bridge. Framed between the towering edifices to one side of
them stood the gleaming form of the great rocket ship.
Viewed from twenty floors lower down the city was even
more impressive, yet somehow not overpowering, Ian thought.
The soaring lines of the buildings were softened by fluted
vertical mouldings, strongly sculpted cornice and ornamental
friezes, avoiding the stark bleakness he so disliked in modern
Earthly tower blocks.
Half a dozen billboard-like panels mounted on stanchions
rose above the roadside railings. As they got closer to the
nearest of them they saw that the images displayed on it were
moving.
‘They’re giant television screens,’ Barbara exclaimed.

Within a few feet of the nearest screen, sound suddenly cut
in to accompany the pictures. A neatly dressed woman was
sitting behind a desk, apparently reading a news report with
calm deliberation.
‘...lost contact with our automated monitoring station in
Arishia,’ she said. ‘The last telemetric readings received
showed the land had been completely submerged by a series of
tidal waves.
‘Once again we remind you that there are still


approximately thirty-four days to go until Zero Day. The
mayor’s office also confirms that the final tests on the Ship are
proceeding to schedule. On launch day the evacuation warning
will be transmitted over all the usual channels, allowing ample
time for an orderly embarkation. Meanwhile, go about your
business as normal.
‘And now we have this message from Bishop Fostel.’
The image changed to show a middle-aged man dressed in
dark blue robes richly decorated with silver and gold thread,
standing behind an altar decked with burning candles and
gem-encrusted icons. His mouth, under the shadow of a
hawkish beak of a nose, split into a beatific smile and he
opened his arms wide in greeting. Multicoloured light radiated
from behind his head to create a scintillating halo.
‘Peace be upon you, Brothers and Sisters, followers of the
One Maker,’ he intoned solemnly. ‘My message is simple. If
you hold to those truths we know to be absolute and inviolate,
you shall be saved!
‘Meanwhile, I ask you to show compassion to those of our

fellow citizens who have not yet found the One Path, and to
remind them there is still time to embrace the only truth. Lead
them into the light and their salvation will also be assured,
joining the chosen who will rebuild the church anew on
another world...’
They stepped back from the screen and the sound muted
once more.
‘Well, I think that explains the purpose of the ship,’ Ian
said. ‘Some disaster is threatening this world and they’re
planning to leave. And so should we.’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ said the Doctor absently. ‘But there’s
no need for haste, my boy. As you heard, they do not expect
this calamity to strike for a month or more. But what is its
exact nature, I wonder? There are still so many questions that
remain unanswered.’
‘For instance,’ said Barbara unexpectedly, ‘why several
cars have passed since we’ve been standing here but not a
single driver or passenger has even glanced at us.’
The others looked at her in surprise.
‘Because we resemble the local inhabitants,’ said the


Doctor.
‘But they haven’t looked at the screens either.’
‘It’s good sense to keep your eyes on the road ahead while
driving,’ Ian said.
‘Including the passengers?’ Barbara persisted. ‘Then why
have the screens here at all? It can’t be for the pedestrian
traffic.’
‘Barbara’s right,’ said Susan. ‘There’s nobody else in

sight. We should at least get a glance.’
They all turned to watch the next car. It had a bubble top
and they could see the driver clearly. His eyes, too, remained
rigidly fixed on the road as he passed them.
‘He appeared to be somewhat preoccupied,’ the Doctor
admitted, ‘but no more than that.’
‘We’ll show you,’ said Barbara, and whispered something
to Susan.
The next vehicle to appear seemed to be a light delivery
van, closed at the back and with a separate driver’s
compartment. As it came towards them, Barbara and Susan
began waving wildly at it. Just as it came level Susan parted
her coat and stuck out her leg provocatively.
‘Susan!’ the Doctor exclaimed, as the van sped past.
‘Sorry, Grandfather. But did you see... he didn’t take any
notice of us at all!’
‘They’re right, Doctor,’ Ian said. ‘That was pretty odd.’
‘Hmm.’ The Doctor’s face creased in thought. ‘Perhaps if
we...’
He was interrupted by the strident blare of a siren, issuing
from the row of information screens. The images and muted
voices had been replaced by large red arrows pointing back
along the bridge and flashing urgently.
‘Alert, alert!’ boomed a harsh voice. ‘Class seven meteor
storm detected. City defences activated. All citizens to shelter
positions. Repeat: all citizens to shelter positions!’
‘Back to the TARDIS, quickly,’ Ian shouted above the
clamour.
They started back at a half run, letting Susan and Barbara
set the pace in the lead. Ian was appalled to see how far along

the bridge they had come from the mouth of the tower tunnel


and suddenly felt horribly exposed.
On the city wall a searing white fireball blazed into
existence and leapt into the sky, followed by a second and
third.
‘Interceptor missiles,’ the Doctor said. ‘It must have been
their launch installations I saw on the wall towers.’
‘Explanations later, Doctor,’ Ian shouted.
The clouds were lit up from within by multiple silent
explosions – the sound would take long seconds to reach them.
Out over the grey ocean an incandescent thunderbolt lashed
down from the sky and exploded in a towering fountain of
boiling water. A second bolt struck the beach.
Then the heavens opened and it seemed to rain fire.
From the city walls narrow threads of light flickered and
stabbed upwards in response. The sky filled with vaporising
rock and metal.
‘Laser cannon,’ the Doctor panted.
A meteorite fragment slipped through the overloaded
defence screen and smashed into the upper levels of a tower
not a quarter of a mile away, blowing out all the windows. The
air filled with the curious crescendo of its supersonic descent.
Then a car emerged from the tunnel ahead and drove
serenely past them; the driver was apparently quite oblivious
to the destruction pouring down from the sky.
‘The fool!’ Ian gasped. ‘What’s he think he’s...?’
There was a blaze of light and a shocking raw thunder
blast of sound. The surface of the bridge rippled and bucked

under their feet, sending them tumbling.
Ears ringing, purple after-images floating before his eyes,
Ian struggled to his knees and looked around. The others were
also picking themselves up, stunned but apparently uninjured.
A hundred yards behind them smoke was rising from a
cratered hole, punched clean through the structure of the
bridge. Balancing on its very brink was the car that had just
passed them.
‘Barbara, Susan... get back to the lift,’ Ian said, struggling
to his feet. ‘Doctor... we’ve got to try to get the driver out.’
The two men stumbled through the pall of smoke as
scattered fragments of concrete ground under their feet. They


reached the car, its gleaming sides now torn and buckled and
its windows cracked and starred. Ian fumbled with the
unfamiliar handle on the driver’s door for a moment, then with
a jerk it fell open.
‘Are you all right...?’ he began, only to feel the words die
in his throat.
The driver was strapped in place by broad belts that
crossed his shoulders and waist. His hands were still clasped
around the steering yoke, while his eyes stared sightlessly
ahead. But he had no legs. His torso ended in a flat plate that
rested on the seat.
It was a dummy.
For an instant Ian’s eyes met the Doctor’s, which reflected
his own utter astonishment.
Before they could speak there was a booming explosion
from high above.

They spun about to see that the top of the tower where the
TARDIS rested was surrounded by a spreading cloud of blast
fragments. The roof deck seemed to fold in upon itself and
then dropped down through the hollow shell of the building
into which Susan and Barbara had run only seconds earlier.
‘No!’ Ian cried out in fear and despair.
He had managed just three futile strides when the road
tunnel, crushed flat by the avalanche of falling debris, vomited
a plume of dust into his face.


Chapter Two
The Mayor of Arkhaven
Brantus Draad’s skycar circled the remains of the tower twice
before receiving clearance from the reconstruction squad
ground team. The pilot set the car down gently on the elevated
road, on the far side of the tower from the damaged section,
and Draad climbed stiffly out. Supervisor Curton greeted him
and they walked clear of the wash from the car’s idling fans.
‘How does it look?’ Draad asked.
‘The shell’s going to need a rebuild, Mayor. The
foundations may have been damaged as well, but we can’t tell
until we excavate the wreckage down there.’ Curton looked at
Draad uncertainly. ‘This close to Zero Day, I was wondering if
we couldn’t just make it safe and leave it be.’
Draad sighed. ‘Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do,
wouldn’t it, Mr Curton? But you know it’s not as simple as
that.’ He suddenly felt very tired. ‘However, I’ll see what I can
do. Meanwhile, what was this you said about finding some
NC2s up here?’

‘That’s right, Mayor. They’re over here.’
Curton led him across to the small cluster of emergency
vehicles.
Beside an ambulance a couple of city guards were
watching over two strangers, both men, one with flowing grey
hair, whose odd clothes showed they were not citizens. A
young woman, hardly more than a girl, was being loaded into
the ambulance on a life-support stretcher.
‘The men had just pulled the girl from the remains of the
tunnel as we arrived,’ Curton explained. ‘Apparently there’s
another NC2 woman still missing. They think she may have
been in the service lift when everything collapsed.’
‘How did they get out of the camp and find their way up
here?’ Draad asked. ‘I wasn’t notified of any recent escapes.’


Curton hesitated. ‘In the circumstances I haven’t pressed
them about it yet. They seem pretty confused by what’s
happened and too worried about the condition of the girl and
the other woman. Sorry, Mayor.’
‘Even NC2s deserve our compassion,’ said Draad. ‘But we
have security to think of, especially at times like this. What
about their registration cards?’
‘I asked for them, but they didn’t seem to understand what
I meant.’
‘Thrown them away and thought they could pass
themselves off as citizens, I expect. They must have been
hiding out here since the last break-out, waiting for a chance to
get closer to the Ship.’
The medics were trying to close the ambulance doors, but

the old man seemed to be protesting, even as the younger man
seemed to be trying to reason with him. The guards held him
back as the doors closed and the ambulance lifted into the air,
warning lights flashing urgently.
The two strangers watched it recede into the distance until
it was lost in the city haze. Then they turned back to the
wrecked tower, and Draad saw the bleak despair on their dirtstreaked faces. Well, they had certainly paid the price for
trying to escape. He’d prefer to simply have them shipped
back to the camp immediately, but there were questions that
had to be answered first. He gestured to the guards to bring the
men over to him.
‘You realise this is a restricted zone, and you could be
punished for being caught here,’ he told them when they stood
before him. ‘However, if you cooperate, I may decide to be
lenient. First, tell me when you escaped from the camp.’
They looked at him blankly, as though he was talking
complete gibberish.
‘Do you understand me?’ he said slowly. Perhaps they
were island-dialect speakers. ‘Are you from the Ferren
Islands?’
‘We understand you perfectly,’ the old man said, his voice
dulled by exhaustion. ‘I wanted to travel in the ambulance
with my granddaughter, but they wouldn’t let me. Where have
they taken her? I must be with her!’


His fear and concern were so palpable that Draad found
himself saying reassuringly. ‘She’ll be taken to City Central
Hospital. Don’t worry, she’ll get the same care as any citizen.
When she has recovered she will be brought back to you.

Meanwhile, you will answer my question. When did you
escape from the camp? Who aided you?’
The old man rubbed a shaky hand across his forehead.
‘Camp! I don’t know what you mean about any camp. We
have just arrived here, my granddaughter is seriously injured,
my friend is missing. I have no time to answer your foolish
questions.’
‘You’ll speak politely to the mayor,’ one of the guards
said sharply.
‘You’re the mayor?’ the younger man said, as though
waking from a daze. ‘Look, you must get more men here.
We’ve got to try to find Barbara!’
He looked as though he wanted to go back into the ruined
tower and start moving the rubble with his bare hands.
‘I assure you everything will be done to find your friend,’
Draad said. ‘Heavy excavating equipment will be here very
soon. We don’t leave anybody unaccounted for after a meteor
strike, even NC2s. Now, for the last time, when and how did
you get out of the camp?’
‘We have been in no camp,’ the old man snapped back.
‘We are travellers, wanderers in time and space. We arrived on
this world no more than an hour ago. Our craft landed on top
of this tower... I suppose it is now buried somewhere amongst
the rubble. It appears externally to be a large blue box. If your
men come across it –
‘Doctor!’ the younger man interrupted angrily. ‘Forget
about the TARDIS!’
The old man looked contrite. ‘Of course... I’m sorry,
Chesterton. The shock. Naturally we must think of Barbara
first.’

‘Your, ah, spacecraft, landed on top of the tower?’ Draad
said slowly.
‘Only in a simplistic sense,’ the old man said irritably.
‘But my friend is right – you must concentrate all your efforts
on finding our companion. If she remained inside the lift cage


there is a chance, a good chance, that she has survived.’ The
younger man hung his head, looking sick with worry. ‘No,
never despair, Chesterton. I’m sure they’ll find her.’ He turned
back to Draad, his eyes burning fiercely. ‘You promise every
effort will be made, sir?’
‘Yes, every effort will be made to find your friend.’ Draad
replied simply. ‘I promise.’
‘Good, good. The TARDIS can wait. It is very robust. I’m
sure it has survived the fall.’
Draad’s heart sank in exasperation and not a little pity.
There was little point in questioning them any further. The two
men were obviously delusional. Mental disorders were not
uncommon amongst the last refugees they had taken in. Many
of them had been convinced the world was going to be saved
by divine intervention or superhuman aliens – though these
were the first he had encountered who actually thought that
they themselves came from outer space.
‘I’m sure it has,’ Draad said lightly. ‘Meanwhile, let the
guards take you back to the camp. That’s where all newcomers
to Arkhaven go. You belong there. They’ll see you get new
registration cards and then you can draw your rations and have
a rest.’
‘But I must stay here,’ the younger man said.

‘No, you can’t do anything more here,’ Draad said firmly.
‘We have plenty of experience in this sort of work.’ He heard
the hum of powerful engines, and a large transporter rolled up.
‘Look, the heavy equipment has arrived.’
The side of the truck split open and unfolded to form a
ramp. From within came the whine and hiss of machinery
powering up. Fluorescent orange and yellow metal limbs
unfolded and wheels turned as the robot squad disembarked
and marched and rolled purposefully towards the tower. Claw
hands flexed and cutting beams flared as they awaited their
assigned tasks.
The two men stared after the excavators in surprise, almost
as though they had never seen anything like them before. They
are far gone, Draad thought. The drone of a skycrane passing
overhead made them look up. A bucket grab was already
being lowered from its main body, supported by six